The TRC crew is busy preparing for our semiannual corporate retreat on the beautiful South Carolina coast. As such, there isn’t sufficient time for a full ‘boning up on the Kentucky Wildcats (particularly if we’re gonna stop off in Cola and play some pitch and catch with Busta Anderson).

With this time limitations in mind, let’s focus on one aspect of our SEC East foe this week: The Billy Reed Curse.

For those of you who don’t remember, Billy Reed is a longtime and much-acclaimed Kentucky sportswriter. Way back in 1999, Reed published an editorial hit-piece on the South Carolina athletic program in the Lexington Herald Leader. While the article is no longer available online, our memory is sunspot-seared with many of its details.

Mssr. Reed was of the opinion that the South Carolina Gamecocks did not belong in the Southeastern Conference. He was particularly adamant that our culture, our history, and our athletic prowess were an embarrassment to the SEC. We didn’t belong with the elites, he opined, and we contributed nothing to the betterment of the conference cause.

The only thing to do with us, Reed held, was to unceremoniously dump us out of the conference.

Since that article was published, our athletic programs have won multiple division, conference, regional, and even national titles. And in football specifically, the South Carolina Don’t Belongs have beaten the Kentucky Bluebloods in 13 out of last 14 contests. In some of those games, we’ve blown them out. In others, we’ve had rough outings, but the Wildcats would always find a unique way to lose. They almost seem cursed against us.